Tarte Blush & Glow Duo Review & Swatches

Tarte Cosmetics released some brand new products last week, and although I passed on their last collection, this one had quite a few things I was interested in. One of them was the new Blush & Glow duo, which is part of the Double Duty Beauty line they have at Ulta.

The Blush & Glow duos look very similar to the Becca Champagne Splits that launched last year, but at $30, these are $8 less. They're also a little smaller at .10oz per side (the Becca ones are .13 and .15 per side).

Read on for my review and swatches!

Description/Details:

A powder blush & highlighter duo with dynamic shade combos for maximum color & glow on all skin tones giving you beauty on the double, without the trouble.

There are two shades...Pink (which has a pink blush and pink-champagne highlighter) and Coral (which has a peachy pink blush and golden-champagne highlight). I chose the Coral shade because I've been really into peachy-toned blushes lately.

When it arrived in the mail, I thought it actually looked more pink in the pan than peach, but I was happy that the highlighter looked lighter than it did on the website.

Despite looking straight-up pink in the pan, the blush actually swatches more on the peachy-pink side and the highlighter is definitely light enough for me to wear as well.

The powders feel totally different from each other...the blush is very smooth and silky with a denser feel, while the highlighter feels buttery (almost creamy) and very soft, just like Tarte's single highlighters.
Both are nicely pigmented and show up well on my skin. Like all of Tarte's blushes, the formula is long-lasting and remains visible on my cheeks for most of the day.

Of course, I couldn't do a review without comparing the shades to others in my collection! On the blush side, I was able to find two very close dupes...the Makeup Revolution Matte Blush in Nude and Wet n' Wild ColorIcon blush in Mellow Wine (which is just a hint deeper but looks about the same on the cheeks).

As far as the highlighter goes, I don't actually have an exact dupe in my collection (one may exist somewhere, I just don't own it). But I just wanted to swatch my gold highlighters so you can see just how light in color the Tarte one is compared to the others. The closest shade I have is the Lorac Light Source in Starlight...it's very similar in color, but it's much more subtle and not as shiny. The rest of my gold highlighters are much deeper so there's really no comparison there.

Overall, do you need this? Probably not, especially if you already own one of more of the Becca Split-Pan duos. But if you enjoy Tarte's blush and highlighter formulas and want the convenience of having them both in the same compact (especially for travel), then I think you'll really enjoy this!

5 comments

Thank you for your always helpful and thorough reviews! I had my eye on these and since I don't own any of the Becca split pans, I think I'll buy this one. I'm going on 4 vacations this year and the idea of having a blush and highlighter in the same compact is what's drawing me in. That and the fact that the blush is the same color as the MR Nude which I bought due to your review a couple months ago! It's one of my favorite blush colors so it's nice to have basically the same color with a highlighter attached.